Switch mechanism for counters



Jan. 2l, 1930. Q L CARLSON 1,744,259

SWITCH MECHANISM FOR COUNTERS Filed July 2. 192'5 11.111111.ulllnrllllllllflnvnvill/'1111111111 Y BY 62 .56 57 7,/ /5/ 60 56 75 gwn/11M( f fz;

' ATTORNE 5.

t counted, and it is the machines,

Patented Jan. 21,1930 I CHESTER L. CARLSON, OF QCROCKETT, CALIFORNIA SWITCH MECHANISM FOR CQUNTERS Application led'xuiy 2,

This, invention relates to counting mechanisni and particularly pertains to electrically operated means for consecutively counting articles.

In connection with the operation of various and especially in connection `with conveyor mechanisms along which articles pass at equal intervals or at random it is desirable to provide means for accurately countingI the articles as they passa given point and to register the number 4of articles principal object of the present invention to provide simple and'accura-te means for bringing about this result.

The present invention contemplates the use of a counting lever disposed in the path of travel of articles successively passing a given point, said lever acting under inliuence of the passing articles to operate the registering,

device, and being further provided with means whereby` the lever will notaccidentally operate the registering device except when definitely operated by an article passing a given point.`

The invention is illustrated by Way of eX- ample in the accompanying drawings, in

Fig. 1 is av diametrical view in section and 'elevation showing the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a view in elevation showing the trip mechanism as viewed in the direction of arrow 2 in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a view in plan showing theregistering mechanism of the present invention.

Referring more particularly to the accompanying drawings,v 10 indicates an endless conveyor belt by which articles are carried. In the present instance this belt `delivers the articles in succession onto a chute 11 which is formed with side lianges 12 for limiting the lateral movement of the articles; and for directing the articles onto a platform or other conveyor belt 13.

Thepresent invention is designedy to' opcrate at some point along the path of travel -of the articles and 'for convenience it is here shown as being installed in connection with the chute 11. The invention broadly considered registering" mechanism 15 electrically opercomprises a trip mechanism 14 and a.r

1925. Serial No. 41,015.

ated thereby. The trip mechanism 14 comprises a counting arm 16 extending through an opening 11 in the floor of chute 11. This arm projects a distance through the floor so that it will be encountered by an article sliding down the chute, and will be depressed thereby. The trip lever is mounted to oscillate aroundv the axis of a shaft 17 to which it is keyed.

lThis shaft carries a lifting cam 18 which is hereshown as extending radially from the shaft 17 upon the opposite side from the lever 16. A cam shoe 19 rests upon the face of the cam and is carried at the lower end of a push rod 20. This push rod is mounted in bearings 21 and 22 to reciprocate in a plane at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the shaft A spring 23 is mounted on the shaft and acts between bearingA 21 and a shoulder 24 on the shaft to hold the tact with the cam v18.

Carried upon the bearing 21 or adjacent thereto are a pair of contact lingers 25 and 26. These lingers are normally spaced a distance from each other and are dielectrically mounted so that a liow of current will only pass through them when they are in Contact.

VThe lingers 25 and 26 are formed with contact points 27 and 28 normally spaced a distancefrom each other to form a circuit breaking gap 29. Spring linger 25 is formed with an inclined length indicated at 30, against which the upper end of the push rod may .act as it is moved upwardly by swinging movement of the cam 18, so that the contact linger will be swung outwardly to bring the contact points 27 and 28 into engagement and complete an electric circuit in a manner which will be Vhereinafter described.

-The finger 26 is electrically connected with a source of electric supply 31 by a conductor 32. For the purpose of the present installation, impedance 33 is placed in series with the lcircuit at a break in conductor 32. The contact linger 25 is connected with a conductor 34 leading to a magnet coil 35 mounted within and forming a part of the registering mechanism 15. This coil is provided at its other pole with a conductor 36 leading to the source of supply 31, and it will therefore be Cil m in Fig. 1 and the plan view of the same mechanism as shown in Fig. 3, it willA be seen that l a spring motor 37 is provided. This motor acts through a gear 38 to drive a gear 39 carried on a supplemental shaft 40. This shaft is mounted parallel to and disposed above the springfmotor. The shaft '40 in the presentinstance carries a large gear 41 in mesh -With a pinion 42 on an escapement shaft 43.

The escapement shaft '4 3 is `provided with a toothed escapement wheel 44 which rotates with the 'shaft and is limited and controlled vby the escapement pawls 45. These pawls are rigidlyconnected Vand mounted .to oscillate arounda common intermediate pivot 46. Ain operating arm 47 is rigidly secured to the pawl for producing their oscillation. This arm carries an armature 48 at its free end which will be influenced by the magnet when this magnet is energized, thusproducing the escapement action. The escapement shaft 43 also car-ries a` gear 49 in meshwith a pinion50. This pinion is mounted on aI primary indicator shaft 51'as fancy er pinions shown in Fig. 3, and a plurality 'of secondary indicator shafts 52 are geared to the primary shaft 51 by a gear train comprising a plu- 54` andgeais 55, thus producing means for decimal counting and regisi tering of the successiv'e-impulses of the magnet 35, which of course result directly from the making-fof 'contact between the contact 'A Spring fingers 25 'and 26 as actuated by the depression of counting lever 16.

motor has been provided in the device in order to insure constant registering the escapement and uniform tension onl mechanism and constant and uniform driv' motor.

the electric winding motor 70, the spring ing of the registering shafts 51 and 52. lt is evident, however, that this motor will in the 'course of time unwind and become in-` operative, and in order to Vobviate-this objcction velectrically actuated meansfor automaticallywinding the spring motor have been provided. This meansy comprises an electrically driven motor fitted'with a driving pinion 71 in mesh with a gear 72. The gear 7 2is on a shaft- 73r carrying a pinion 74. The` inion 74 is in turn in mesh with the gear 5 lfastened to the shaft 56 of the spring I t will thus be evident that by driving motor will be wound.

In order to insure that the windingmotor '65' will operate automatically when the spring motor losesits tension, a cam 57 is Xed on carried-by lthe finger 59 -is fixed on the shaft 17 and is normally magnet 69 to be held rigidlynected to wires the shaft 56 ofthe spring motor. This cam is here shown as being substantially semicircular in formation and having an arcuate face concentric with the axis of shaft 56.

Disposed in the path of travel of the cam 5 7 at one point therealongis a shoe 58 mounted on the back of a spring contact finger 59, the position of the shoe and finger being such as to cause the finger to be deflected when the shoe 58 is engaged with the cam 57. This de-A fiection is sufficient to bring a contact point 60 a contact point 61 carried by a finger 62. The fingerv 62 is electrically connected with the lead wire 36 of a generator 31 by aconductor 63. The finger 59 is electrically connected with pole 64 of the winding motor 70 by conductor 65. The opposite pole 66 is electrically connected with lead wire 32 of thel generator 31 bya conductor 67. n

In the operation ofthe counting lever 16, it has been found that some times the lever will'chatter as it springs back to its original position under influence ofthe expansion spring 23. This might at times cause additional contacts to be made between the fingers 25 and'26 with the result in counting will take place. In order to obviate this a radially extending armature 68 1n? iuenced by a that inaccuracy into engagement with against the poles thereof. The magnet is consistently energized from a source of supply through wires 69a.' and 69b suitably c'on- 32 and 36. This magnetic iniiuenceis sufficient to hold the parts against accidental movement, but is not sufficient to withstand the' action of'anarticle passing along the chute\11 from depressing the lever 16, the result being that the lever will be depressed by *the 'article and will swing back to its normal position after the article has `passed over it and remain motionless as held y the magnet 69. In operation of the present invention,"ar ticles are delivered from the endless conveyor 10 to the chute 11. 1n the present/case it will be assumed that these articles are sacks of granular materialgsuch as sugar, and that they travel-in single 'file 'down the chute 11 .so that vthey succession. 4As the, .article travels down the 19. This will cause the push rod 20 to beA shoved upwardly inthe direction of the arrow -cas indicated in Fig. 1 and will thus will Lpass over the lever 1 6 'in ture lever 68 will move in the contact cause the upper end of the push rod 20 to strike the inclined face 30 of the contact finger 25. This will cause the contact finger to swing horizontally so that the contact point 28 at the end of the finger will bear against point 27 on finger 26, thus closing the gap 29.

When the contact points 27 and 28 are in engagement with each other an electric circuit will be completed from the generator 31 through lead wire 32 to the contact finger 26, then across the contact g finger 25 and then along conductor 34 to the magnet coil 35. The current after passing through the coil will return through lead wire 36 to the generaton Vhen this circuit has been thus completed the coil 35 will be energized and will attract the armature 48 carried by the free swinging end of the escapement lever 47. This leveras has been previously described is pivotally mounted uponY pivot 46 and is rigidly secured to the escapement pawls 45. When the ejscapement lever 47 swings in the direction of the arrow7 athe escapement wheel 44 will be released to rotate the distance represented by one tooth of the escapement wheel. This rotation will be brought about by the spring motor 37 acting through the gear train provided to impart motion from the shaft 56 of the spring motor to the shaft 44 of the escapement wheel. Rotation of the shaft 44 will in turn impart motion through gears 49 and 50 to the counter` shafts 51 and 52 of the registering mechanism. As soon as the article passes over the end 16 of the lever 16 the downward pressure of the spring 23 will act through theshoe 19 and against the cam 18 to swing the lever 16 upwardly to its original position.

Swinging with the lever 16 is the armature lever 68 and as the counter lever 16 reaches its original inoperative position the armaclose proximity to the poles of the magnet 69. This will cause the armature 68 to be forcefully drawn against the poles and to be there held until another article passes along the chute and depresses the lever 16.

It will thus be apparent that at each time an article passes over the end of lever 16 an electrical circuit will be made through the coil 35 to permit the escapement of the escapem'ent wheel 44 and to allow the escapement shaft 43 to rotate a distance equal to the distance between two teeth of the wheel. This will indirectly produce a fractional rotation of the primary counting shaft 51 with resultant decimal rotations of the other counting shafts 52.

Then the spring motor 37 is suiiiciently unwound so that the cam 57 carried on the shaft 56 of said motor is in contact with the slice 58 on the spring contact finger 59, this contact finger will be deflected so that contact points 60 and 61 will be brought in engagepoints 27 and 28 to the 70 cuit will be established from lead wire 82 through conductor 67 to one pole of the motor 66, and then from the other pole of the motor 64 to the conductors 65 after which the circuit will be completed through the contact finger 59 and 62 and the return wire 68 connectingl with lead wire 86. Vhen' the spring motor has been sufficiently rewound the cam 57 will move out of engagement with the shoe 58 and break the circuit through the winding motor .It will thus be seen that ment here shown simple and effective means are provided for automatically counting successive articles passing along a chute, whether travelling in equal spaced or timed relation or whether passing along the chute at random, and that by means of thepresent device the registering mechanisinwill act continuously and automatically. A

While I have shown the-preferred form of my invention as now known to me, it is to be understood that various changes may be made in its construction without departing from the spirit of the inventionas. defined in the appended claims. l

Having thus described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent 1s:

1. A device of the class described, comprising a pair of switch' contacts, yieldable means normally holding said contacts out of engagement with each other, an actuating member for momentarily bringing said contacts into engagement with each other and being thereafter restored toits original position by the yielding means, and magnetic means for holding said actuating member in its initial position until again positively actuated.

2. An electric switch comprising a pair of .contacts movable with relation to each other,

an actuating member adapted to be operated to momentarily bring the contacts in engagement with each other, means for restor-` ber by a rebounding thereof and against accidental displacement. c

3. An electric switch vcomprising a fixed contact and a movable contact, fa reciprocating rod adapted to move said movable contact into engagement with the fixed contact, a cam adapted to reciprocate said rod, an actuating lever moving the cam, yieldable means normally restoring the actuating lever to its initial position after closing the switch, an armature moving in unison with said actuating lever, and a magnet acting upon the armature to normally hold the lever in its initial inoperative position and prevent a rebound thereof when it is returned to its inoperative position by said yieldable means.

by the arrangelOO 4. In a device ofthe class described, the combination of a passageway along which articles pass in succession, an oscillatory counting lever projecting'into the path of the articles so as to be actuated by the same, a cam connected with the counting lever, a push rod having a shoe engaged by the cam, normally l`.spaced contact ingers arranged to be moved to closed position by the push rod, a spring vlo for returning the push rod and the counting lever to normal position after operation by an Varticle, and magnetic means of suicient strength to maintain the lever in its normal Y position until positively actuated by an article, whereby rebound of the said spring is prevented. v

5. In a device oftheclass described, the combination of a passageway along which articles pass in succession, an oscillatory count- `V ing lever projecting -into the path of the articles so as to be actuated by the same, a cam connected with the counting lever, a push rod having a shoe engaged by the cam, normally spaced contact fingers arranged to be moved to closed position by the push rod, a spring for-returning the push rod and the counting lever to normal position after operation by an article, an armature connected with the counting lever, and a normally energi'zed magnet arranged to engage the armature and being of sufficient strength to maintain the lever in its normal position until positively actuated by an article, y whereby rebound of thespring and chattering of the lever are prevented.

i CHESTER L. CARLSON. 

